How to Purify Tap Water for Health & Safety

How to purify tap water and insure your family’s health and safety is outlined here.   Synthetic and organic chemical compounds are present in public sources.  Also heavy metal lead and parasitic cysts have been found in public water systems that enter homes.
 
Under ordinary circumstances, all of these things must be removed.  In emergency situations, when bacterial contaminants have entered the water supply due to heavy flooding, improper treatment or natural disaster, the best solution is to filter and then boil.

Chlorine - Good Guy Bad Guy

If boiling is impossible, the only solution is household chlorine bleach.  The Center for Disease Control recommends 8 drops of unscented chlorine bleach per gallon.  Of course, in a perfect world, you would have stored plenty of purified drinking water, before hand.

Although chlorine bleach can be useful during emergencies, you certainly do not want to drink it everyday.  Chlorine content can be reduced by 99% or greater.  Chlorination byproducts and harmful volatile organic compounds can be reduced by 99% or more.  Reverse osmosis and distillation purifiers do not remove chemicals.
 
Cheap brands like PUR and Brita do not include enough steps to remove all of them.  Primarily, the cheap water filters remove some chlorine.  Chlorination byproducts are even more harmful.  They may cause cancer.

Of course, in a perfect world, you would have stored plenty of purified drinking water, before hand. But as you know bad things happen even suddenly.

How to Purify Tap Water & Remove Chemical Contaminants

Granular activated carbon, carbon blocks and other filtering materials are the best solutions for removing chemical contaminants.  The best home purifiers include several stages to remove the widest range and variety of chemicals.

How to Purify Tap Water Containing Lead and other Metallic Traces

Lead and traces of other metals are present in many homes around the world.  Until recently, lead solder was used to connect copper piping.  As these pipes degrade, the metals leach into your water.

Ion exchange steps remove lead and other metals; improve taste, mineral content and pH level.  Reverse osmosis only reduces lead to the “federal action level”.  That’s insufficient, since small traces of lead build up in the body over time, interfering with the ability to absorb nutrients from food and causing other health problems.  Ion exchange reduces lead content by 99% or more.

How to Purify Tap Water Containing Cysts

Cysts may be present at any time.  Facilities try to warn consumers, when cyst contamination is noticed.  But, often the warnings are not posted soon enough to prevent thousands of people from becoming ill.

Submicron filtration removes cysts.  Boiling and reverse osmosis will also remove them.  But, a submicron filter on your tap costs less than reverse osmosis and protects you at all times, unlike boiling which can only be done in an emergency situation.

Even bottled brands can contain cysts.  Exposure can also occur by brushing your teeth or washing fresh fruits and vegetables.  They are the size of a speck of dust on a pinhead, invisible to the naked eye.

A system must be certified to remove anything larger than one micron.  The best systems remove anything larger than a half a micron, just to be safe.

When combined, ion exchange, sub micron filtration and chemical removal provide the safest drinking water available.  Now, you know how to purify tap water completely.  Just, look for a system that includes all of those steps.  I found one water filter system, see resource box, that included all the steps making how to purify tap water simple and safe.